Super Powereds: Year 3 by Drew Hayes Page A

yourself. Something to keep in mind when you select your ultimate major at the end of the year.”
    Dean Blaine finished his speech and headed out of the room, leaving behind a group of students far less certain of their overall standing than they had been minutes earlier.
    Which, truth be told, was exactly the point.
     

12.
     
    Mary was surprised to find herself called into Professor Stone’s office after the first day of Focus. The upside to having a pair of telepaths in proximity was that there was no need to send notes or give a message in front of the rest of the class. Mary had long ago grown accustomed to listening to her professor’s thoughts while she taught; it was not only considered proper, it was part of her training. So it was that, as the rest of the students filtered out the door, off to their next course of the day, Mary walked over to Professor Stone’s desk and took a seat in her usual place. They’d had several after-class conferences over the last year, usually to discuss some area Professor Stone felt she should change tactics or improve on, and Mary had no reason to suspect this would be anything different.
    “I want to know,” Professor Stone began, taking her own seat behind her desk, “why it is you’ve been neglecting your training?”
    Mary inched backward in surprise. Nothing in the older woman’s thoughts had betrayed this sentiment, but then again, she was likely very adept at controlling what rose to the surface of her mind.
    “I haven’t been,” she said after a moment. “I do the concentration exercises, the listening exercises, and the precision exercises, all just like you instructed me to. I’ve improved my level of delicacy with telekinesis by quite a bit, and I still make sure to keep up with telepathy.”
    “Yes, Mary, you’re very diligent in working with your advanced mind abilities—at least the standard ones. Perhaps I should have been clearer: I want to know why you haven’t been trying to achieve a better skill level with your dream-walking talent. You’ve yet to come to me to discuss it, and I’ve never picked up any thoughts about you experimenting with it, or even musing on how to get better.”
    “To be truthful, my plate was already pretty full with trying to keep my team nudging along and making sure my own skills improved. The dream thing seemed rather unimportant by comparison,” Mary admitted.
    “That is . . . fair,” Professor Stone said, her tone somewhere between a grumpy sigh and a stage whisper. “This program does put a heavier emphasis on the abilities that produce more tangible results, especially in the first few years. I’ve never quite agreed with that strategy; however, it has proven to be effective overall. Still, I’m sure you were paying attention to the dean’s speech today, yes?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Mary replied immediately.
    “Then you know that there are considerations made beyond raw damaging power when we select who will graduate. Yes, with your strength, you could qualify going that route, but it would be a waste not to use your time here to explore this very rare gift you’ve been given.”
    “Is dream-walking really that rare?”
    “Incredibly so,” Professor Stone said immediately. “Dream-walking is what we refer to as a deep-mind ability. Telepaths like you and I are considered to have a shallow-mind, or upper-mind, ability. We skim the surface of a person’s thoughts. We see only what’s going through their head in a single moment, and even then, a trained person can control what gets into our view. Some of the best telepaths can go a little bit deeper, sensing what is dwelling beneath the surface, but those thoughts aren’t as well organized, and even if one can see them, it doesn’t mean that person can correctly interpret them.”
    “I think I follow,” Mary said. “So, since, when I dream-walked, I was able to go into Nick and Vince’s subconscious, I was accessing a part of their brain most